First and Last on MSC Cruise Line

Sail Date:
December 2011

Destination:
Europe - Western Mediterranean

Embarkation:
Barcelona

This is one of the worst cruise ever. The service, food, entertainment and shore excursions are poor compare to other cruise lines. Most of the negative reviews for this ship online are accurate and I will not recommended this cruise to anyone especially British and American.
I have to say the ship is quite nice and the state room is very comfortable and nicely decorated, but that"s all the good I could say about this cruise. This ship doesn't have enough public areas. It seems like it is crowded everywhere. The Bora Bora dinning room was pack with people for breakfast and lunch. You could hardly find a seat and many of the passengers were so impolite that they cut lines and push you at the buffet line.

The food quality there is worst than a school cafeteria. There were not much selections and the quality is very bad. I never see any salad bar that the lettuces is sitting in an inch of water. The main dinning room is not much better, they have the same menu for More
breakfast everyday. Lunch and dinner on the main dinning room is not much better. First, the service were awful. The waiters know nothing about the food and the wine they served. We ordered wine every evening for dinner, 3 nights in a row that our waiter bring us the wine and leave it on our table for 10-15 minutes before he open it. One night I like to order a pasta and a risotto dish and our waiter told me I could only order one. What a joke! I cruise 15 times and this is the first time I ever told by a waiter that I could only order one item on each course. Anyway, I don't think I miss much cause the food quality were below average, you will not find any lobster, escargot, beef Wellington, steak dishes in the menu, but there were lots of pastas and pizzas.
Entertainment were just average. It seems like the shows were pretty much the same most evenings except the customs were different.
Shore excursions were decent in a couple of ports. However, we have bad experience with our tour in Tunis that our tour guide basically trap us inside the Medina from shop to shop try to sell us junks. What a waste of time and money!
Also, you have to pay for water, coffee............ . They try to sell you different packages: Water package, wine package, coffee package, cocktail package. They will give you a book of coupons for the package, but you still have to use your room card to charge it. What a waste of time.
They also charge you an euro for Unichief on your bill. Many passengers were not happy about it and have it taken out from their statement. It is not because of the money, but you just don't put it on our bill without consent. Don't take our money and use MCS name to donate it.
In conclusion, if you ever cruise with Royal Caribbean, Princess, Celebrity, Norwegian or Crystal, you will sure be disappointed with MCS line. Less